Senator Kyl: I'll Walk if any Defense Cuts are Proposed

[Karl Agathon]

The Red Dragon must be watched carefully!

 

[sunzt]

When in a negotiation the first thing you must understand is your worst possible outcome. Whomever has the least worst possible outcome has more leverage in negotiations. Think of Greece when they first asked for a bailout. If no one bailed out Greece, it would have likely tanked the whole EU region and the euro.

Now in this case, it's clear that the Dems have the least worst possible outcome since they have an extremely high probability of getting defense cuts even if nothing happens with the super committee. Whichever GOP leader approved of this deal had to trade off between the auto 10% cut vs not passing the debt ceiling limit and thought this 10% cut was the lesser of the 2 evils (which it is) and is now reaping the consequences.

 

[ichy]

Regarding defense cuts, I'm somewhat split on the issue. I believe troops from Iraq and Afghanistan should cone home now. I would imagine that would save the U.S. a pretty penny in itself. However, with a very belligerent Red China arming itself to the teeth for eventual future war with the U.S. and to bully its Asian neighbors, I dont want to see to many cuts.

If we want to maintain a strong military that's capable of standing up to China in the coming decades we'll need a powerful Navy and Air Force, but could do with a smaller Army. A big Army is only needed if we get bogged down in drawn out conflicts with savages in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopefully we learned our lesson about that kind of crap.

 

[sunzt]

If we want to maintain a strong military that's capable of standing up to China in the coming decades we'll need a powerful Navy and Air Force, but could do with a smaller Army. A big Army is only needed if we get bogged down in drawn out conflicts with savages in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and hopefully we learned our lesson about that kind of crap.

Do you think China is gonna invade us or something? Even as bad as the cold war was, the US and Soviets never engaged in direct combat against each other.

 

[Craig234]

In 1997, we had a defense budget already bloated by the corrupt military-congressional-industrial complex; lacking cuts following the end of the cold war.

Since then, the defense budget has tripled.

So when I call for a 50% reduction to the defense budget, that could also be described as calling for a 50% increase over the already large 1997 budget.

Kyl is a disgrace to the Senate with his priorities.

 

[Pens1566]

#notintendedtobeafactualstatement

 

[woolfe9999]

When in a negotiation the first thing you must understand is your worst possible outcome. Whomever has the least worst possible outcome has more leverage in negotiations. Think of Greece when they first asked for a bailout. If no one bailed out Greece, it would have likely tanked the whole EU region and the euro.

Now in this case, it's clear that the Dems have the least worst possible outcome since they have an extremely high probability of getting defense cuts even if nothing happens with the super committee. Whichever GOP leader approved of this deal had to trade off between the auto 10% cut vs not passing the debt ceiling limit and thought this 10% cut was the lesser of the 2 evils (which it is) and is now reaping the consequences.

I think you're right. I recall that the issue of what percentage of the automatic cuts would be defense cuts was the last thing holding up the deal on the final day. Looks like Obama stood up on that one and made a shrewd deal, which is why I'm so surprised that liberals were angry about this.

With a $350b in defense cuts already passed and another $600 billion on the potential chopping block, the dems have more bargaining power here. They also have a big political bargaining chip with entitlement cuts. The GOP has long wanted to cut entitlements but they worry over the political fallout. Any deal involving entitlement cuts that the dems have fingerprints on is political cover for them.

The wise thing for the GOP to do here is to agree to close the tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations, and defense cuts at about half of what the automatic cuts would be, and include some entitlement cuts in the package. However, the no new tax stance is probably going to kill any such deal, which leaves us with a bunch of spending cuts that are hugely weighted toward DoD, no cuts to entitlements, and then the dems can effectively raise taxes when the Bush cuts come up for expiration.

- wolf

 

[Jaskalas]

Bring the troops home, save money.

 

[ichy]

Do you think China is gonna invade us or something? Even as bad as the cold war was, the US and Soviets never engaged in direct combat against each other.

Invade us? Of course not. I do worry about them starting to push around their neighbors though. Having a navy which has the ability to shut down the Chinese export machine by parking a half-dozen submarines off of their major ports is always a useful capability to have, even if there's almost no chance we'll ever use it. China's leadership respects strength and force.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

Anyone that's ever been in the military can tell you there are some fairly easy ways to cut the budget that wouldn't affect operations at all....hell we used to spend left over budget at the end of the year on ATVs, snowmobiles, and leatheman tools so that we wouldn't get our budget cut the next year for not spending it all.

 

[Lithium381]

full bi partisan support for getting this guy out it seems!

 

[Craig234]

Anyone that's ever been in the military can tell you there are some fairly easy ways to cut the budget that wouldn't affect operations at all....hell we used to spend left over budget at the end of the year on ATVs, snowmobiles, and leatheman tools so that we wouldn't get our budget cut the next year for not spending it all.

I would think this is one of the best things government can do on waste is look at how to prevent this. Perhaps some sort of independent auditing agency.

Right now there are too many bad incentives and it seems not enough oversight for this type of spending.

 

[drebo]

We have military bases in over 100 countries. It absolutely needs to stop.

And if we're going to be at war with anyone, we should be at war with Mexico until they fix their fucking problems, not fighting in some desert over mounds of sand and dirt.

Close 90% of all military bases over seas.

The problem is that the military has become a gigantic jobs program, and no one is going to close it.

 

[sactoking]

I just don't get why defense spending isn't incrementally lowered. Well, I do get it, nobody wants to think long-term, but it's stupid.

Normal defense spending for 2011 is budgeted at somewhere around $680 billion. If defense spending for 2012 were set at 99% of the 2011 number the cut wouldn't be painful and the US would save $6.8 billion. If every successive year's defense budget were set at 99% of the prior year's total, no individual cut would be major and by 2021 the defense budget would be down to $614,979,811,006. That's an annual savings of more than $65 billion compared to 2011 spending levels, a total saving of over $363 billion over 10 years, and savings of who knows how much over continued inflated defense spending.

At $614.98 billion we'd still be about 5x higher than any other country. We wouldn't be in any danger compared to today and we'd have $363 billion more. Easy.

 

[First]

So wait, you mean to say some of the things he says shouldn't be taken as a factual statements? Where have I heard this before?

lol

Haha, I loved it when Kyl's team released that statement. "Wasn't intended to be a factual statement". Seriously Kyl?

 

[ElFenix]

Regarding defense cuts, I'm somewhat split on the issue. I believe troops from Iraq and Afghanistan should cone home now. I would imagine that would save the U.S. a pretty penny in itself. However, with a very belligerent Red China arming itself to the teeth for eventual future war with the U.S. and to bully its Asian neighbors, I dont want to see to many cuts.

we're basically leaving iraq already and afaik we're still on shrub's timetable from 2008 for that. i don't consider doing what we were already planning on doing to be a new cut and shouldn't be counted as a cut for these purposes.

I would think this is one of the best things government can do on waste is look at how to prevent this. Perhaps some sort of independent auditing agency.

fwiw nearly every bureaucracy has this problem. frankly i'm shocked that the GAO isn't authorized to review every agency every decade to determine where there is duplication, needless overspending, etc. i don't think texas is alone in having a sunset commission that reviews agencies to determine usefulness of various agencies and recommend whether that agency/department should be continued or shuttered.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

American politicians are bought and paid for, and the American people lap it up. It's hilarious.

 

[Nebor]

Anyone that's ever been in the military can tell you there are some fairly easy ways to cut the budget that wouldn't affect operations at all....hell we used to spend left over budget at the end of the year on ATVs, snowmobiles, and leatheman tools so that we wouldn't get our budget cut the next year for not spending it all.

Yeah, what's infuriating is that that same attitude still exists today. You have senior officers absolutely hell bent on spending every bit of their budget they can, and then trying to get into other pots of money to get even more crap that NO ONE NEEDS. $1000 custom rugs with the unit crest on it? New machine guns for display purposes? The Army kicks the fiscal conservative in me in the balls daily.

EDIT: And the $300 pull up straps. We get them in cases of 10. They cost $20 on amazon. WTF.

 

[Fern]

General summary:

Senator John Kyl (R), Arizona, a member of the deficit reduction Super Committe, threatened to walk from the committee if there is talk of any defense cuts whatsoever:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576558993243510256.html

Several salient points:

1. Is it constructive for anyone on that committee to threaten to walk based on a single issue litmus test?

No

2. Given that 50% of the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts that will occur if the committee fails to arrive at consensus will come from the DoD, isn't Kyl's stance rather self-defeating and frankly idiotic? If he opposes defense cuts shouldn't he stay on the committe and try to negotiate a smaller defense cut?

Yes

3. Why should defense be off the table as deficit reduction?

It shouldn't

I'm particularly curious if anyone here would actually defend the Senator's stance on this, and if so on what ground.

- wolf

My answers in bold above.

Fern

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Anyone that's ever been in the military can tell you there are some fairly easy ways to cut the budget that wouldn't affect operations at all....hell we used to spend left over budget at the end of the year on ATVs, snowmobiles, and leatheman tools so that we wouldn't get our budget cut the next year for not spending it all.

So you're a gigantic piece of shit, and proud of it? Got it.

 

[Fern]

-snip-

The wise thing for the GOP to do here is to agree to close the tax loopholes for the wealthy and corporations
- wolf

I believe that will be much harder to achieve than many here realize. I also think those who believe only Repubs do NOT want to cut 'loopholes' are partisan fools. GE's green credit that enabled it to pay no income tax is a Dem supported 'loophole'.

Those deductions and credits are in there because Congress thought they should be. They all have their supporters. Politicians talking of this now, right before an election, is a great way to drum-up campaign funds from scared lobbyists.

They may cut some, but personally I'm predicting a fustercluck as regards this committee. That committee position looks pretty close to being a 'kiss of death' to me. I don't see how, no matter the outcome, they can avoid making a lot of people mad.

For quite some time I've complained about the quality of articles from the MSM linked here. IMO, most are are written by hack journalist writing on subjects they have no clue about. So, I decided to bring in other sources, and an example is the article I just linked in my thread about govt regulation. This source is a completely nonpartisan professional source. I.e., they know what they are talking about, and they ain't spinning at all. I mention this here because in our profession (finance/accounting/CFO's etc) we have quite a bit of talk about cutting 'loopholes'. It looks to me like serious talks on this have been going for quite some time; talks you guys don't hear much about because the MSM doesn't report on them. There are serious talks about a huge and fundamental change in corporate taxation that is tied in with the 'loopholes'. We may be dropping our global system in favor of a territorial one. This means income earned by our US companies would NOT be taxable on their US tax return and you'll never see another argument about repatriating foreign profits. Now, again, 'loopholes' are part of this convo and making these kinds of huge changes ain't quick, so I highly doubt this deficit committee is going to get anywhere with all of this going on.

Fern

 

[nonameo]

So you're a gigantic piece of shit, and proud of it? Got it.

It's not like he has control over spending, he's just watching it go by.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

So you're a gigantic piece of shit, and proud of it? Got it.

Um yeah.....I was in no way in charge of the budget or what we bought.

I should also say that the things that were bought were used for official business. I worked at USAF Survival School at that time. We used the snowmobiles and the ATVs. We just didn't really NEED more but the way budget was allocated, the squadron was encouraged to spend everything they got otherwise the budget automatically got cut the next year.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Um yeah.....I was in no way in charge of the budget or what we bought.

What did you do about it?

 

[Nebor]

Um yeah.....I was in no way in charge of the budget or what we bought.

I should also say that the things that were bought were used for official business. I worked at USAF Survival School at that time. We used the snowmobiles and the ATVs. We just didn't really NEED more but the way budget was allocated, the squadron was encouraged to spend everything they got otherwise the budget automatically got cut the next year.

The AF training detachment here had extra money at the end of the year, so they improved some Army barracks that airmen have to stay in for ~10 weeks. Now they have wifi, satellite TV and a 40" Samsung LCD in every room. The airmen still get substandard living conditions pay for staying there.